to know where they were, nor would he stand still till they came up with him, but confused them and himself by running to meet them by some deluding stair.
'We've not got a house, but a Cretan labyrinth,' said Babie.
'Or the bewitched castle mother told us of,' said Allen, 'where everybody was always running round after everybody.'
'You've only to have a grain of sense,' said Bobus, who had at last recovered Joe, and proceeded to give them a lecture on the two main arteries, and the passages communicating with them, so that they might always be able to recover their bearings.
They were more sober after that. Rob drove his mother home, and the Colonel made the round to inspect the dilapidations, and estimate what was wanting. The great house had never been thoroughly furnished since the Bradfords had sold it, and it was, besides, in manifest need of repair. Damp corners, and piles of crumbled plaster told their own tale. A builder must be sent to survey it, and on the most sanguine computation, it could hardly be made habitable till the end of the autumn.
Meantime, Caroline must remain a tenant of the Pagoda, though, as she told the eager Janet, this did not prevent a stay in London for the sake of the classes and the society, of whom she was always talking, only there must be time to see their way.
The next proposition gave universal satisfaction, Mother Carey would take her whole brood to London for a day, to make purchases, the three elder children each with five pounds, the younger with two pounds a-piece. She actually wanted to take two-thirds of those from Kencroft also, with the same bounty in their pockets, but to this their parents absolutely refused consent. To go about London with a train of seven was bad enough; but that was her own affair, and they could not prevent it; and they absolutely would not swell the number to thirteen. It would be ridiculous; she would want an omnibus to go about in.
'I did not mean all to go about together. The elder boys will go their own way.'
But, as the Colonel observed, that was all very well for boys, whose home had always been in London, but she would find his country lads much in her way. She then reduced her demand by a third, for she really wished for Johnny; but the Colonel's principles would not allow him to accept so great an indulgence for Rob.
That unlucky fellow had, of course, failed in his examination, and this had renewed the Colonel's resentment at his laziness and shuffling. He was, however, improved by contact with strangers, looked and behaved less bearishly, and had acquired a will to do better. Still, it was not possible to regret his absence, except because it involved that of his brother; and, with a great effort, and many assurances of her being really needed, Jessie's company was secured.
Never was the taste of wealth sweeter than in that over-filled railway carriage, before it was light on the winter morning, with a vista of endless possibilities contained in those crackling notes and round gold pieces, Jessie being, of course, as well off as the rest, and feeling the novelty and wonder even more.
Mrs. Acton's house was to be the place of rendezvous, and she would take charge of the girls for part of the day, the boys wished to shift for themselves; and Allen and Bobus had friends of their own with whom they meant to lunch.
Clara met her friend with an agitated manner, half-laughing, half- crying, as she said-
'Well, Mother Carey dear, you haven't quite soared above us yet?'
'Petrels never take high flights,' said Carey; 'I hope and trust that it may prove impossible to make a fine lady of me. I am caught late, you see.'
'Your daughters are not. You won't like to have them making excuses for mamma's friends.'
'Janet's exclusiveness will not be of that sort, and for warm-hearted little Babie, trust her. Do you know where the Ogilvies can be written to, Clara? Are they at Rome, or Florence?'
'They were to be at Florence by the l4th. Mary has learnt to be such a traveller, that she always drags her brother abroad for however short a time St. Kenelm may give her.'
'I hope I shall catch her in time. We want her for our governess.'
'Now, really, Carey, you are a woman for old friends! But do you think you will get on? You know she won't spare you.'
'That's the very reason I want her.'
'It is very generous of you! You always were the best little thing in the world, with a strong turn for being under the lash; so you're going to keep the slave in the back of your triumphal chariot, like the Roman general.'
'I see, you're afraid she will teach me to be too proper behaved for you.'
'Precisely so, after her experience of Russian countesses. I don't know whether she will let you be mistress of your own house.'
'She will make me mistress all the more,' said Caroline; 'for she will make me all the more 'queen o'er myself.''
Then began the shopping, such shopping extraordinary as none of the family had ever enjoyed except in dreams; and when it was the object of everybody to conceal their purchases from everybody else. Caroline contrived to make time for a quiet luncheon with Dr. and Mrs. Lucas, to which she took her two youngest boys, since Jock was the godson of the house, and had moreover been shaken off by his two elder brothers. Happily he was too good-tempered to grumble at being thrown over, and his mind was in a beatific state of contemplation of his newly-purchased treasures, a small pistol, a fifteen-bladed knife, and a box of miscellaneous sweets, although his mother had so far succumbed to the weakness of her sex as to prevent the weapon from being accompanied by any ammunition.
As to Armine, she wanted to consult Dr. Lucas about the fragile looks and liability to cold that had alarmed her ever since Rob's exploit. Besides, he was so unlike the others! Had she not seen him quietly make his way into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Lucas kept a box for the Children's Hospital, and drop into it two bright florins, one of which she had seen Babie hand over to him?
'I do think it is not canny,' she said, as if it had been one of his symptoms.
'Do you want me to prescribe for it?'
'I did try one prescription for having too big a soul; I turned my poor little boy loose into school, and there they half killed him for me, and made the original complaint worse.'
'Happily no prescription, 'neither life, nor death, nor any other creature,' can cure that complaint,' said the good old doctor, 'though, alas! it is only too apt to dry up from within.'
'Still I can't help feeling it rather awful to have to do with a being so spiritual as that, and it appears to me to increase on him, so that he never seems quite to belong to me. And precocity is a dangerous sign, is it not?'
'I see,' said the doctor, smiling; 'you are going to be a treasure to the faculty, and indulge in anxieties and consultations.'
'Now, Dr. Lucas, you know that we were always anxious about Armine. You remember his father said he needed more care than the rest.'
Dr. Lucas allowed that this was true; but he only recommended flannel, pale ale, moderation in study, and time to recover the effects of the pump.
Both the good old friends were very kind and full of tender congratulation, mingled with a little anxiety, though they were pleased with her good taste and simplicity and absence of all elation. But then she had hardly realised the new position, and seemed to look neither behind nor before. Her only scheme seemed to be to take a house in London for a few months, and then perhaps to go abroad, but of this she could not talk in those old scenes which vividly brought back that castle in the air, never fulfilled, of a holiday in Switzerland with Joe.
On leaving the Lucases, she sent her boys on before her to the nearest bazaar, and was soon at her old home. Kind Mrs. Drake effaced herself as much as possible, and let her roam about the house alone, but furniture had altered every room, so that no responsive chord was touched till she came to the study, which was little changed. There she shut herself in and strove to recall the touch of the hand that was gone, the sound of the voice that was still. She stood, where she had been wont to stand over her husband, when he had been busy at his table and she had run down with some inquiry, and with a yearning ache of heart she clasped her hands, and almost breathed out the words, 'O Joe, Joe, dear father! Oh! for one moment of you to tell me what to do, and how to keep true to the charge you gave me-your Magnum Bonum!'
So absolutely had she asked the question, that she waited, almost expecting a reply, but there was no voice and none to answer her; and she was turning away with a sickening sense of mockery at her own folly in seeking
